Where is the US economy headed?

We need to be willing to drill in ANWR, as well as other places to try to enhance our own oil production. Anything less is national suicide. Blame the Democrats only for this one.


Alternative energy sources are being explored, aggressively. To suggest we need to "begin" exploring a viable alternative implies we haven't, which is nonsense. Rather, it has been simple economics - oil and gas is still one of the most efficient, cheapest, and consistently reliable sources of energy, even at $100 per barrel. We could have had alot more nuclear by now if not for the tree huggers. So blame environmentalists for nuclear. In regard to wind, the wind turbines are growing all over the west. In regard to geothermal, again blame environmentalists for roadblocks to accessing some of the best geothermal areas, and blame simple economics. In regard to solar, lots of people are working on it, including some major energy companies that have traditionally been oil and gas companies.

Bottom line, have confidence in American ingenuity and the free market. As price of oil rises, other alternatives will happen right before your eyes, that is if the government will get out of the way as much as possible. Beginning suggestions for government would be to ease restrictions on drilling for oil and gas, and for development of more nuclear, geothermal, etc. Also more tax incentives for energy efficient homes, and perhaps cars, would be another way to go.

And I tend to agree with cyclops, that maybe the way to go is more toward off the grid for homes, to make them more independent and self sufficient. After all, centralization has been shown to be efficient for some things, but not for other things, example the personal computer instead of the mainframe. Perhaps off the grid can ultimately be more efficient through the use of solar shingles, different building methods, etc.? Not being reliant on a central power station also makes us less vulnerable to outages in time of war or natural disaster, both individually and as a nation.

Investors agree: Anything but the dollar
Currency traders gave the U.S. dollar a thorough pounding Wednesday and pushed the value of the euro to $1.47, the highest on record.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/11/07/business/dollar.php?WT.mc_id=newsalert

Yeah!

I just can't think of much of a downside to decentralization of the power grid. In the short run it allows us to use what energy that is produced more efficiently, in the long run we can reduce the total amount produced (Or cheapen it significantly until Fusion comes along).

I also think that fans of the Rural lifestyle should be super into self power sufficiency. It has the capability to significantly improve the lives of many who live outside the big cities.

Check it: once you get some reasonable self-powering solutions, hook up one of these things, and you hardly have to go to town for stuff:

http://fabathome.org/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page

Cycloptichorn

Harnessing the power of ocean waves for energy

By James Kanter Published: November 7, 2007






LONDON: Denmark generates a fifth of its electricity from wind power, Germany is a global leader in solar technology and Iceland heats huge numbers of homes with geothermal energy. Could Britain match the achievements of its neighbors in renewable energy by harnessing the power of the waves along its abundant coastline?

Marine power is the newest form of zero-carbon energy, winning attention from investors and governments, with wave farms in development in countries including Portugal and Australia.

But the British Isles have become one of the prime locations to test machines that convert motion from the ocean into electricity. Across the country, pioneering companies and enthusiastic local authorities are heralding wave power as a way to add more renewable energy and to create hubs of innovation.

In northernmost Scotland, authorities are financing a testing center in the remote Orkney Islands and pouring millions of pounds into projects like the Pelamis. This device, made by a Scottish company, Pelamis Wave Power, resembles a giant sea snake. When the waves move, its various segments move too, driving a generator that produces electricity.

In Cornwall, on the southwestern tip of England, the regional authority is helping to finance an undersea cable that will connect the onshore grid to a large electrical "socket" on the seabed about 10 miles, or 16 kilometers, away.


When the socket is completed in 2009, four wave energy companies, including Pelamis, will each be leased an area of the sea to place their devices and connect them to the so-called Wave Hub. The initiative could end up generating 20 megawatts of clean energy, or enough to power 7,500 homes.

That would be a significant step for the technology at a time when analysts say that the only marine energy company in the world that is consistently selling electricity to a utility is on the Scottish island of Islay. There, a device operated by Wavegen, part of a joint venture operated by Siemens and Voight, generates enough power for about 300 homes from a device attached to rocks on the shoreline.

Marine power entrepreneurs say their technologies have a key advantage over offshore wind: aesthetics. Most marine devices rise just a few feet above the surface rather than 90 meters, or 300 feet, into the air, like the towers of some of the latest windmills.



http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/11/07/business/greencol08.php?WT.mc_id=newsalert

"The dollar fell another 2 per cent last night, gold soared to $840 per ounce, oil topped $98 per barrel, General Motors reported a $39 billion loss after the market closed on Tuesday, the real estate market continued its downward slide, and the major investment banks are marching in lock-step towards bankruptcy.

The catalogue of fiscal ailments now facing the country is too long to list. We'd need a ledger the size of a small encyclopedia. There's been a stampede away from the dollar even though it's already lost over 60 per cent of its value since Bush took office and even though central banks around the world will lose their shirts if it collapses. They don't care. They're getting out while they can.

Cheng Siwei, the vice chairman of China's National People's Congress, announced yesterday that China would continue to diversify its $1.4 trillion reserves away from the dollar to "stronger currencies" like the euro. "Strong currencies"; isn't that Paulson's line?
The news is no better in the real estate industry either, where the nation's biggest builders are reporting record losses and inventory is backed-up 11 months. Sales are off 22per cent in one year alone. Foreclosures are skyrocketing, jumbo loans (over $417,000) are impossible to get regardless of one's credit history, 40 per cent of all mortgages (subprime, Alt-A, piggyback, reverse amortization, interest-only) have been eliminated, and entire projects in Florida, Arizona, Las Vegas, and California's Central Valley have stopped building altogether. Tens of thousands of unoccupied homes across the Southwest have been reduced to ghost towns. Nothing is selling. The building boom, that began when Alan Greenspan ginned-up the Fed's printing presses in 2002, has turned into the biggest housing bust in American history.

New home construction has accounted for 2 out of every 5 new jobs created in the last 5 years. Most of those workers are either delivering pizzas, cleaning bed pans or are lining up at the soup kitchen
According to the Mortgage Bankers Association of Washington, the total of mortgage loans outstanding in 2006 was $10.9 trillion; $6 trillion of which were transformed into securities. (CDOs, MBSs) About $1.5 trillion of those securities are subprime; another $1 trillion Alt-A (nearly as risky) and at least another $1.5 trillion in adjustable rate mortgages (ARMs) At least 20 per cent of these shaky liabilities/securities will default, and yet, no one really knows who is holding them on their books.

Charles Hugh Smith sums it up like this in his recent article "Empire of Debt: The Great Unraveling":

"If their bad bets were marked to market, Citicorp and Merrill Lynch would be declared insolvent. Why? Because they are insolvent--right now. The meaning of insolvency is straightforward: their losses exceed their capital. Recall that these firms list assets of $100 billion (or whatever) but their actual net capital is on the order of 2.5 per cent to 5 per cent---a mere sliver of their stated assets. In other words: a 5 per cent loss of their stated assets wipes them out..The game is now over, and the players shuffling losses can only last a few more days or weeks."

http://www.counterpunch.org/whitney11082007.html

as long as the oil(gasoline , fueloil) stays more or less at current prices in north-america , there is imo not much hope for large oil-independent
power sources to come on-line .
"ocean power" was considered many years ago in the bay of fundy - HIGHEST tides in the world - but was shown to be uncompetitive at oil-prices of those days .

it would be different if prices would rise to european levels , but there would likely to be riots in the streets of north-america (including canada) if that should happen .

a canadian CONSERVATIVE government was thrown out of office when it suggested that the gasoline price should be increased by 5 CENTS per imperial gallon !

imo north-americans will continue to march towards the energy cliff , like lemmings into the sea .

i doubt north-american governments would dare to take away cheap gas , no matter what even CONSERVATIVE economists are telling them .

leave it to the NEXT government to take the fall - ALWAYS THE NEXT GOVERNMENT .
hbg

The downside is the up front investment. As an instant gratification society, we tend to spend less for anything even though it may cost us alot more to operate, prime examples automobiles and houses. In regard to homes, I think it is insane to use energy to blow up a balloon full of holes with hot air all day, which is essentially what many houses are. We have the capability now to build very energy efficient homes through a variety of means and combinations. Somehow, we need to gain much greater attention of builders, through the tax code I suppose, to quit building more energy wasteful houses. I have a relative that lives in an earth berm house, or built into the side of a hill, he still has plenty of light, but the energy to heat the home is drastically reduced.

Countdown towards an economic bloodbath has already started! For those required by their religion to accept the mystery of the Holy Trinity, some wisdom should come from the unraveling of the other (financial) "holy trinity": debt, price of oil and value of the US dollar. Father, Son and Holy Spirit are three distinct, different persons in one God, according to Roman Catholic dogma; while that god in doctrinal American capitalism is represented by debt, oil and a "fleeting dollar;" all distinct, different . . . yet, intertwined.

A few contrarian-apprentices in Wall Street are beginning to question whether the sheer strength of our economy, and the globalization of our major corporations, will be able to sustain current Wall Street market figures, or even 2007 closings without any gains this year for the DOW, S&P 500 or the supremely and ever-volatile NASDQ. Naysayers are still but few -- or at least appear reserved in their comments -- afraid they may be treated with similar disdain as those biblical prophets of doom who, although wise-appearing to generations in the future, often seemed as laughable goats to their contemporaries.

Worry not, we are told; things are hunky-dory in every respect! Yeah, we are surging in unstoppable ways, militarily and economically; if we don't believe that, let's ask the man who lives in the White House, our Soothsayer-In-Chief. Things are just bushy-swell!

All we seem to need is just another fix, or two, or three, or 10 more . . . from that soother of pain, the Fed; another round of borrowing, or two, or three, or 10 more . . . from our children, grandchildren, great-grandkids, and even those twice-great grandkids, so that merrily we may continue enraptured in our permanent state of blind Econophoria.

Econophoria . . . the state of grace in which we, Americans, are born, naturalized into, or even "illegally" adopted. Just as other poor souls are said to come into the world with an "original sin," or all too often the curse of poverty, we've been born with an "original exceptionality" and blessed with self-multiplying wealth . . . as if manna from heaven.

Now we are rolling the carpet of pain for the upcoming recession and putting the blame in the "sub-prime" problem of the housing market, and the inability of capitalism sans controls to police itself. But that is only the beginning, the first layer of a putrid onion-market in housing and commercial construction that has added trillions of dollars of non-existing value to an economy that has cannibalized itself, or rather the future well-being of generations to come, asking them to pay for all the phony consumption-growth we've managed to have in the United States and, by imitation, in other parts of the world.

We have been misusing most of the existing 11 leading indicators for domestic economic performance to the point of utter ridicule. Does it make any sense to have our Gross Domestic Product overly inflated in terms of consumption? Or, that the CPI and the way we measure inflation give not just an imperfect way to weigh what should be a representative bundle of goods, and a way to track rising prices, but an unfunny, crude joke? Or, that the employment indicators measure raw numbers of ever lower paying jobs, instead of a change in payroll constant dollars relative to population? Or, that the Consumer Confidence Index is totally meaningless for a population being kept ignorant, in the dark, or even lied to?

And to top it all, we continue to live in the stupor of Econophoria!
http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_2621.shtml

It would appear that all the necessaries are in place for a recession. . The only question is how deep and how long. I wonder if we can send that offshore along with our lost economy

The Economic Consequences of Mr. BushRemember the Surplus?The Bankruptcy BoomAnd Then There's IraqContempt for the WorldThe Way Forward

Federal Liabilities Now Equal $175,000 for Every American
By Terence P. Jeffrey
CNSNews.com Editor in Chief
November 08, 2007

(CNSNews.com) - Deficit spending and promised benefits for federal entitlement programs have put every man, woman, and child in the United States on the hook for $175,000, says a new report by David Walker, comptroller general of the United States.

On Tuesday, Walker sent the results of his audit of the federal debt to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. The audit revealed that, as of Sept. 30, the last day of fiscal year 2007, the U.S. government owed $8.993 trillion.

Of this nearly $9 trillion in debt, $5.049 trillion is in the form of Treasury securities held by the public, while the other $3.944 trillion is in the form of loans made to the Treasury from "surpluses" in the trust funds of federal entitlement programs, including the Social Security, Medicare, military retirement, and civic service retirement programs.

In addition to this debt, which represents money the federal government has already spent, the government also faces a gap between the projected revenue expected from the current tax structure and the spending that will be required to cover promised benefits in Social Security, Medicare, Veterans Administration and other entitlement programs.

"If these items are factored in," Walker said in his report, "the total burden in present value dollars is estimated to be about $53 trillion. Stated differently, the estimated current total burden for every American is nearly $175,000; and every day that burden becomes larger."

Of the $5.049 trillion in debt currently held by the public, $2.22 trillion is held by foreign investors, Walker calculated. "[T]o service this foreign-held debt," Walker said, "the U.S. government must send interest payments abroad, which adds to the incomes of residents in other countries rather than to the incomes of U.S. residents."

In fiscal 2007, the federal government owed $433 billion in interest on the money it had already borrowed and spent. Of this $433 billion, $239 billion was paid in interest on Treasury bonds, and the other $194 billion was added, on paper, to the money that the Treasury already owes to the entitlement program trust funds.

Over 25 years, the federal debt grew almost eight-fold, from $1.142 trillion in 1982 to $8.993 trillion in 2007.
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewNation.asp?Page=/Nation/archive/200711/NAT20071108b.html

Thank you Xingu for the wonderful article.

"Many commentators continue to be on recession watch. They report every new piece of economic data in an attempt to confirm, or unconfirm, whether we are in a recession

Gary North, who is one of the best money watchers around, is watching the adjusted monetary base. He writes that "the adjusted monetary base has risen at [only] about 1.6% per annum since mid-March." This fact can not be ignored. But looking at the adjusted monetary base is looking at the ingredients of a dish before it is cooked in the oven. I prefer to look at a dish after it is cooked, for me this is the M2 (non-seasonally adjusted) Fed money number. M2NSA is growing at roughly a 6.0% annualized rate. Ron Paul, the only presidential candidate to understand economics (and probably the only candidate to actually look at money supply numbers) watches MZM money supply data. According to Dr. Paul, MZM money supply is growing at a 12% annualized rate. Thus, only Gary North's adjusted money growth figure can justify the subprime crash as being a business cyclical crash.

If, indeed, the M2NSA numbers or the MZM numbers are more accurate, then it suggests that the money that was going into the subprime sector is simply being re-directed and we will be in for a doozie of a recession once the business cycle does hit.

Here's a quick lesson on business cycles. The Federal Reserve prints money out of thin air and this distorts the economy as this newly printed money enters the monetary system, usually headed into the capital goods sector. When the printing stops, the capital goods sector crashes. Voilà, the business cycle. Why does the Fed eventually stop printing? Because all the money printing eventually causes serious price inflation that forces the Fed to stop printing before a runaway inflation begins. We are near this point now, with oil near $100 per barrel and gold over $800 per ounce. It's business cycle bust or runaway inflation, as choices for Mr. Bernanke.

So assuming that M2NSA and MZM numbers are somewhere in the ballpark, if the Fed starts to truly slow money growth and we are in a recession, how will you know? These are the types of headlines you will see when the downturn in the overall economy hits:
GOOGLE STOCK HITS 52-WEEK LOW
FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER, BOTH DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN AUTOMAKERS REPORT LOWER SALES IN THE U.S.
MICROSOFT ANNOUNCES BROAD-BASED LAYOFFS
IT'S A DOUBLE DIP DOWNTURN FOR THE HOUSING INDUSTRY: Battling Back from the SubPrime Crisis, Housing Falls Again on Broad-Based Economic Downturn
U.S. BUDGET AT CRISIS STAGE: The Slowing Economy has Reduced Corporate Tax Revenues By a Remarkable Rate
SOCIAL SECURITY IN CRISIS: Social Security Inflow Has Slowed Dramatically, Econometricians say "We Knew There Was a Problem With Social Security But Our Equations Said It Wouldn't Hit For Another 20 Years"
CONGRESS CONSIDERS INTERNET TAX IN A DESPERATE MOVE TO FIND A SOURCE OF TAX REVENUE
DESPITE A SLOWING ECONOMY INTEREST RATES ON LONG-TERM BONDS REMAIN STUBBORNLY HIGH
REAL ESTATE DOWNTURN ALSO TAKES COMMERCIAL PROPERTIES DOWN THIS TIME
BUSINESS TRAVEL HAS DECLINED DRAMATICALLY: For Those Still Holding Jobs, They Can Find Unheard of Travel Bargains, Airlines and Hotels Are Cutting Rates, Sometimes by 70%, to Fill Empty Rooms and Seats that Are Not Being Used by Business Travellers

If Gary North is correct and the monetary base is the best indicator to determine how much money is being added to the system, you will still see the same headlines only sooner."
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig8/wallach4.html

While speaking to a group of White House reporters, President Bush fended off questions about the weak state of the dollar, the expected long-term deficit caused by Social Security and Medicare payments, and a faltering housing market by assuring reporters that the U.S. economy's ability to have such a widespread negative impact on the world only further proves it is "easily the best."

"Our recent credit crisis alone has been enough to depress share prices in Japan, Rome, China, and Brazil," a smirking Bush said during a press conference Thursday.

"Sounds to me like our economy is still pretty powerful." Bush later added that he was equally proud of the impact U.S. foreign policy has had over the past six years, adding that only a truly great president could be capable of fostering so much hatred across the globe.

http://www.theonion.com/content/news_briefs/bush_proud_u_s_economic

Could he really be so stupid?

Wage growth is low. Factoring in inflation, hourly wages were 3.1% higher and weekly wages were 2.2% higher in September 2007 than in March 2001.

2. Benefits are disappearing. The share of private sector workers with a pension dropped from 50.3% in 2000 to 43.2% in 2006, the last year for which data are available, and the share of people with employer-provided health insurance dropped from 64.2% to 59.7%.

3. Family debt is on the rise. In the second quarter of 2007, household debt amounted to 131.3% of disposable income, which is only slightly below the record high of 131.4% recorded in the fourth quarter of 2006. In the second quarter of 2007, families spent 14.3% of their disposable income to service their debt, up from 13.0% in the first quarter of 2001.

4. Families feel the pressure. The share of new mortgages entering foreclosure was 0.7% in the second quarter of 2007, reflecting the fifth increase in a row to the highest level on record since 1979.

5. Housing market slows. New home sales in September were 23.1% below the level of September 2006 and existing home sales were 19.1% lower. The median sales price of existing homes was 4.2% lower in September 2007 than a year earlier and the median sales price of new homes was 5.0% higher than a year earlier. The average monthly supply of homes for the six months ending in July was 7.9 months, the highest since May 1991.

6. Home equity declines. Home equity dropped by 0.6 percentage points relative to disposable income in the second quarter of 2007. This is the fourth quarter of decline in a row, the largest year-over-year decline in home equity relative to disposable income since March 1993.

7. Weak job growth continues. Monthly job growth since March 2001 has averaged an annualized 0.7%. From October 2006 to October 2007, the average monthly job growth was 139,700 jobs, compared to 199,500 in the preceding 12 months.

8. Poverty stays high. The poverty rate fell slightly to 12.3% in 2006, down from 12.6% in 2005, but still substantially higher than the last low point in 2000, when it was 11.3%.

9. Improvements in government's finances are temporary. In August 2007, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the deficit for 2007 amounted to $158 billion, $14 billion less than projected in January. Yet, the cumulative budget deficit from 2008 to 2012 increased sharply from $194 billion to $696 billion in CBO's projections.

10. Tax cuts do not pay for themselves. The Joint Committee on Taxation estimated that the tax enacted since 2001 would cost $300 billion in 2007 alone, such that the federal government would show a surplus had it not been for President Bush's tax cuts.

11. This endangers our economic independence. Foreign investors bought 80% of new Treasury debt and the share of U.S. foreign-held debt grew to 46% from 32% from March 2001 to June 2007. The quarterly interest payments from the federal government to foreigners rose to $39 billion in the second quarter 2007 from $21 billion in the first quarter of 2001.

12. Trade deficit remains high despite strong export growth. In the third quarter of 2007, the trade deficit fell slightly to 5.1% of Gross Domestic Product from 5.2% in the second quarter of 2007. Yet, the last trade deficit is still larger than any trade deficit since the Great Depression recorded before the second quarter of 2004.
Read snapshot with full graphs (pdf)
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2007/11/econ_snapshot.html

The impact of the U.S. mortgage market crisis on the underlying economy could be "dramatic" as leveraged investors may need to scale back lending by up to USD 2 trillion, according to investment bank Goldman Sachs.

Chief U.S. economist Jan Hatzius said a "back-of-the-envelope" estimate of credit losses on outstanding mortgages, based on past default experience, was around USD 400 billion.

But unlike stock market losses, which are typically absorbed by "long-only" investors, this mortgage-related hit is mostly borne by leveraged investors such as banks, broker-dealers, hedge funds and government-sponsored enterprises.

And leveraged investors react to losses by actively cutting back lending to keep capital ratios from falling -- A bank targeting a constant capital ratio of 10 percent, for example, would need to shrink its balance by USD 10 for every USD 1 in losses.

"The macroeconomic consequences could be quite dramatic," Hatzius said in the note to clients. "If leveraged investors see USD 200 billion of the USD 400 billion aggregate credit loss, they might need to scale back their lending by USD 2 trillion."

"This is a large shock," he said, adding the number equates to 7 percent of total debt owed by U.S. non-financial sectors.

"It's basically another downside risk to the macroeconomy at a time when the macroeconomy already isn't doing that well," Hatzius told CNBC.

He said such a shock could produce a "substantial recession" if it occurred over one year, or a long period of sluggish growth if it occurred over two-to-four years.
http://www.moneycontrol.com/india/news/economy/mortgage-prob-may-cut-lending-by-2-trillion-goldman-sachs/00/25/313398

Every other day there is new revelation of substantial subprime loss. First it was New Century in March, then American Mortgage and Countrywide in September, then it got worse as Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Credit Suisse First Boston, Citibank (albeit with a new CEO now) came out of the woodwork. Last Friday it was Wachovia (US's 4th largest), and on Tuesday it was Etrade. Not one major bank dealing with mortgages was immune. If there is such thing as systemic risk, we are sure looking at it, and therefore expect a lot more skeletons to come out of the closet in the months to come.

How about interest rates? Hiking interest rates on US debts is like giving a discount on mad-cow tainted beef: it's not going to make a difference or help it sell.

At this juncture, the Fed has no choice but to redeem any and all mortgages at near face value directly, through GSEs or offshore vehicles. The more the Fed redeems, the more dollars they print. When you print $1 trillion (10%) a year, people can reasonably swallow the extra money supply, but when you print $1 trillion in a hurry and in a conspicuous way, you are directly challenging money managers' intelligence and you will see a squeeze in gold. It's that simple.

No sane foreign institution is going to finance American home owners, and why should they when they can finance the Brazilians, Canadians, Thais, Russians, Chinese, Indians, with an appreciating currency? The dollar's reserve status is now shattered. Mind you, it's not that we are against the dollar in particular, we just don't think any fiat currency deserves to be the world's reserve currency.

To those who say gold is due for a prolonged correction at $800, you are missing the big picture. To us gold's run has just started, with the emperor now naked for all to see.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/IK16Dj02.html

Indian tourist sites refuse entry to dollar
By Jo Johnson in New Delhi
Published: November 16 2007

Supermodels are not the only ones worrying about the value of their dollar contracts. After years of urging foreign tourists to pay in dollars whenever possible, the Taj Mahal and other Indian heritage sites will now insist on a proper hard currency - the rupee.

The country's culture ministry took the step after confronting a sharp fall in the rupee value of its dollar ticket sales.

Keeping in view international practices and also to avoid any anomaly on account of falling exchange rates of the US dollar vis-à-vis rupee and consequent fall in revenues, the government has decided to denominate the entry fee for the foreigners for all the monuments in Indian rupees only," the ministry said.

This month, the dollar's fall became a subject of tabloid notoriety when it was reported that supermodel Gisele Bündchen had refused to be paid in dollars. Her agent has since denied she had any currency requirements.

Forced now to pay in rupees, US tourists will see a Friday, non-Indians were required to pay $5 per person - converted to Rs250 if they lacked dollar bills - to enter World Heritage sites.

The ministry of culture said on Friday the $5 entry fee had been set at a time when the dollar was worth about Rs50, compared to its current value of just over Rs39. The tariff of Rs250 that foreigners will now pay for entry to sites such as the Taj Mahal and Humayun's Tomb is equivalent to $6.41.

"If you convert $5 today you only get Rs200, so we were losing Rs50 a head," said a culture ministry spokesperson.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a707c320-9473-11dc-9aaf-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1